Mathematics

The Key Worldwide has recently updated its capabilities and programs brochure that provides students and parents with an in-depth overview of the Key’s Complete College Program.

This service helps the student select the appropriate college with specific recommendations based on the individual’s academic and personal goals. The program works individually with students and their families to develop and implement a “game plan” complete with objectives and goals, and an understanding of how the results, if achieved, impact their ability to gain admission to the college of their choice.

The Key Worldwide has made available a brand new brochure that provides students and parents with an in-depth overview of the Key’s Complete College Program.

This service helps the student select the appropriate college with specific recommendations based on the individual’s academic and personal goals. The program works individually with students and their families to develop and implement a “game plan” complete with objectives and goals, and an understanding of how the results, if achieved, impact their ability to gain admission to the college of their choice.

What if your memories could be downloaded, backed up, and implanted into your brain? According to CNN, scientists from MIT, University of South Carolina, and Wake Forest and other prestigious schools, are saying that major memory rejuvenation has been achieved on test mice and other specimen. Soon this technology will make its way into curing human memory and brain degeneration.

This is not as far fetched as it seems. For the past 15 years, doctors have been able to provide brain implants to treat neurological diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson’s. According to Rob Hampson, an associate professor of pharmacology and physiology, patients’ biggest critique and fears of these procedures are placing large, electrically charged pieces of hardware in their brain. Only about 80,000 people have had procedures for these bulky implants for deep brain stimulation in the 15 years they have been available. However, scientists now believe they can replicate the brain’s process of creating long-term memories and can condense the implants to a microchip.
Scientists, such as Ted Berger, a biomedical engineering professor at the University of Southern California, have targeted the hippocampus, which is key for converting short to long-term memories. Using high level math modeling based off of the hippocampus, the scientific team has been able to create a template for how memories are converted for majority of the brain. Berger claims that soon scientists will be able to record a memory being made in an undamaged part of the brain and then use the data to predict what a “downstream” damaged area should do. The chip would replaced the damaged section provide more normal brain function.

The ultimate goal of this technology is learning more and reversing degenerative memory diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Dementia and alleviate the fears many people have by making the procedure minimally invasive. However, these types of procedures have not been as effective on advanced stages of Dementia or Alzheimer’s where multiple areas of the brain are affected simultaneously.

However, the United Kingdom’s Alzheimer’s Society and others are still optimistic about the advancements. The U.S. military is excited to incorporate this type of technology with the many brain injuries soldiers face in combat. This type of technology could be available for volunteers within the next two years and can be used in hospitals as soon as five years from now. And who knows, soon people may even be able to store every event in their lives in something that could fit in the palm of their hand.

The entire country is buzzing about the rising costs of healthcare, especially when it comes to large-scale programs like Obamacare and union retiree medical benefits. It is the job of professional actuaries to develop complex and detailed mathematical models that can accurately project future healthcare costs. One can imagine the complex relationships that need to be considered. For example, spending more on patient care can extend their lives, which means that the model will have more people to care for as time goes on. Spending less can have the opposite effect.

The Society of Actuaries has a new model that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using a set of equations and assumptions developed by Professor Getzen with assistance from the Society of Actuaries Project Oversight Group appointed to oversee the effort. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel, includes baseline assumptions as well as flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions. In addition, the Project Oversight Group has written a document describing practical issues for actuaries using the model.

The modeling also has to take into account new advances in medical science and technology, as well as overall financial market and economic factors. Actuarial science continues to be a growth area for those that are well trained in the study of mathematics.